Monday Insights: Clean Up On Aisle Regret

There’s something you regret, it’s eating you up inside, you think about it and you feel shame, sadness or anger.

What’s the point?

Let me explain myself properly. We spend so much time overthinking the decisions we consider weren’t the best in our lives – could have happened a decade ago or the night before – and we hold on and allow our past actions to take over the way we feel. I’m not saying we shouldn’t feel badly if we’ve done something to wrong ourselves or others, I’m not saying throw compassion, sympathy, or basic human decency down the toilet. What I am saying, is that if we sit in dark corners, at our office desks, while doing the laundry . . . and replay these events over and over, our esteem sinking with each passing moment, it quite literally won’t make a difference. Whatever it is has already happened.

Recently I faced this kind of dilemma, where after I’d gone through with something, I immediately realised how wasteful I’d been with my time. I dwelt on the fact that I didn’t feel how I’d expected to afterwards and cringed each time I thought about it. I did this for a little while until I realised that my reaction was doing me no good. So I stopped beating myself up and instead, resolved within myself what needed to be done to avoid a similar situation cropping up.

That’s what we have to do in cases like this. Don’t grab hold and let it eat us up inside, instead, get to the real root of the issue, what made it happen in the first place, why did we behave the way we did and when that part’s handled, work on cleaning up the mess.

Wishing you all a wonderful week and for more tidbits like this one, search using the keywords Monday Insights :).